Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to online content distribution and, more specifically, to identifying similar items based on interaction history.
Description of the Related Art
Conventional digital content distribution systems include a content server, an application, a content player, and a communications network connecting the content server to the content player. The content server is configured to store digital content items corresponding to different content titles that can be downloaded from the content server to the content player. The application allows a user of the content player to browse through available digital content and manage account information, etc.
Typical digital content distribution systems offer a large variety of digital media to the user for viewing. In order to enhance the user experience, content distribution systems often personalize digital media recommendations to the individual user. One approach to recommending digital media involves determining digital media of interest to the individual user based on the preferences of similar users. One drawback to this approach, however, is that a large amount of data needs to be stored and managed in order to determine similar users making such an approach is inappropriate in some situations.
Another technique implemented by content distribution systems when recommending digital media to a user is to identify digital media that is similar to digital media previously viewed by the user. One implementation of such a recommendation system involves attaching meta-data tags to digital media, such that digital media having the same meta-data tags are deemed to be similar. However, given the large variety of digital media available, thousands of meta-data tags are needed to accurately describe the contents of digital media. Managing the meta-data tags and performing similarity computations based on the multitude of tags is computationally and storage space intensive. In addition, because meta-data tags are often attached to digital media based on the perception of an individual, the tags may not accurately describe the contents of the digital media, and, therefore, any similarity computation performed based on the tags may not be accurate. Lastly, the set of meta-tags that optimally determine similarity of digital media and/or the extent to which each tag should contribute to this similarity typically varies depending on the actual content being evaluated, making global scoring functions based on meta-tags sub-optimal, and content-specific ones difficult to estimate.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is a more efficient and accurate mechanism for identifying digital media that is similar to digital media previously-viewed by a user.